Abstract
Although rhetoric sometimes seems to be a completely neutral instrument, in fact it has several social responsibilities. Chief among these is the display of public reason, justifying contingent claims in the public forum. Other responsibilities include creating a community through revealing common bonds among people and providing the basis for human aspirations. These responsibilities are not self-executing but require committed teachers and citizens to carry them out. A special duty rests with teachers of rhetoric who instruct large numbers of students in written composition and public speaking.
This essay originally was presented as the 2008 Rhetoric Society of America presidential address. It is reprinted from a volume of conference papers, The Responsibilities of Rhetoric (Michelle Smith and Barbara Warnick, Ed.), published by Waveland Press in 2010.
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Notes
- 1.
Jack Selzer, professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, was the incoming RSA president and the 2008 conference planner.
- 2.
This is a form of argument directed against a specific person by showing that that person’s own premises or commitments lead to conclusions that he or she would find unacceptable (Walton 1998).
- 3.
At the time these remarks were presented in May 2008, then U.S. Senator Barack Obama was closing in on, but had not yet secured, the nomination of the Democratic Party for President of the United States.
- 4.
“Sizing up Rhetoric” was the theme of the 2006 biennial conference of the Rhetoric Society of America, held in Memphis, Tennessee.
- 5.
The allusion is to Justice William O. Douglas of the United States Supreme Court, in a decision recognizing the right to privacy although it is not mentioned specifically in the United States Constitution.
- 6.
Former governor of Illinois, two-time presidential nominee of the Democratic Party during the 1950s, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 1961 until his death in 1965.
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Zarefsky, D. (2014). Reclaiming Rhetoric’s Responsibilities. In: Rhetorical Perspectives on Argumentation. Argumentation Library, vol 24. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05485-8_5
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